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Town To Widen Parking Spaces in Playhouse Lot

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Town officials say they intend to widen the parking spaces in the lot behind the Playhouse this spring, and to improve the accessibility between that lot and Elm Street below. The width of the parking stalls in the Playhouse Lot currently is 8 to 8.5 feet, and the new width will be 9 feet throughout with a depth of 18 feet, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. The new parking stall will be “similar to what we did at Morse Court,” he told members of the Parking Commission during an update at their Feb. 5 meeting. “We’re going to hope that we do not lose any spaces on the last two stalls,” he said during the meeting, held via videoconference.

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Town Upholds $50 Ticket Issued To Woman Who Parked on Sidewalk

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Town officials on Wednesday night upheld a $50 ticket issued to a Ridgefield woman for parking on a sidewalk alongside the Locust Avenue Lot. 

Allison Butash told members of the Parking Commission during an appeal hearing that she didn’t know she’d hopped the granite curb and parked on the brick sidewalk near the Post Office. “I apparently went over the curb and it’s a very small curb so I didn’t even know I had gone over it, and apparently in doing so the back of my car was mostly on the sidewalk,” Butash said during the hearing, held via videoconference. “But I was more concerned with the front part of my car, because I didn’t want it to block the turn-in to the parking lot and the fire hydrant that was there. So I completely had no idea I was on the curb when I left my car. I didn’t turn around, I didn’t look.

Government

Town Voids Ticket Issued to Local Woman for Parking in Town Hall Lot

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The New Canaanite 2024 Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Karp Associates. In what was deemed a misread of the situation, town officials this month voided a ticket issued to a local woman for parking in the Town Hall lot. Members of the Parking Commission during their July 10 meeting voted 3-0 to void a ticket that had been issued to Marnie Miller for parking in the lot behind the municipal building while appearing to have no Town Hall business. During her appeal hearing, held at Town Hall and via videoconference, Miller said she had come to register her dogs at Town Hall but stopped in Greenology for a drink beforehand. During that small timeframe, she had been issued the ticket, with the officer believing she was using the lot for other business. 

“I came to register my dogs and it was hot so I popped across the street,” Miller said.

Government

Carlson Proposes Paid Parking on Elm Street

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New Canaan’s highest elected official last week said the town should pursue a change in parking on Elm Street whereby spaces there are paid instead of free. First Selectman Dionna Carlson told members of the Parking Commission at their regular meeting that, at the same time, the town would “switch with Park Street to free parking,” an apparent reference to the paid Park Street Lot. “Most people understand that we have sort of a backwards system: Our most valuable parking is free and our least valuable is paid,” she said at the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “And we’re seeing lots of people circling on Elm Street, creating more congestion, so it just doesn’t make sense.”

Town officials have looked at the prospect of switching Elm Street to paid and making the spaces at lots further from the very heart of downtown New Canaan free. In examining the idea 10 years ago, parking officials framed their reasons for the change in terms of downtown workers taking up the free spaces all day.

Government

Commission Approves New Parking Configuration for Morse Court

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Saying it’ll make parking easier for large vehicles and improve traffic flow, town officials voted last week in favor of re-striping the Morse Court lot. The change will create spaces nine feet wide and at 90 degrees from the travel lane, as opposed to the current configuration where stall widths range from 7.5 to 8.5 feet wide and many are angled, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. The new striping also will create wide enough traffic lanes within the lot to allow for two-way traffic all around, though it will bring a net loss of 10 spaces to Morse Court, officials said at the May 1 Parking Commission meeting. 

Though the town is “not being forced” to change the parking configuration when it re-stripes the lot, Mann said, the spaces as currently configured are not in compliance with the New Canaan Zoning Regulations or Village District Guidelines, Mann said. “The problem is you have spaces that are way undersized and the Commission was receiving complaints,” he said at the meeting, held in Town Hall and via videoconference. “The first selectman’s office was receiving complaints.